Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a technique for matching colors between a plurality of images captured by a plurality of imaging apparatuses.
Description of the Related Art
There is known a conventional system that retrieves image feature amounts of an object (for example, a person) in images captured by a plurality of cameras (imaging apparatuses) (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-105090). When retrieving image feature amounts of an object from images captured by a plurality of imaging apparatuses, the color of the identical object may be mismatched between the images because of the ambient light and illumination. Such color mismatching has reduced the object retrieval accuracy in retrieval based on color information.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-105090 discusses a technique for generating a corrected image having undergone white balance correction by using images of a white-based road sign captured by a plurality of imaging apparatuses attached to a vehicle, or a technique for generating a corrected image having undergone color matching by using images of a road element having color components, such as a curbstone constructed on the road surface.
The technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-105090 extracts an object of a predetermined specific type, such as images of a white-based road sign and images of a curbstone from all of images captured by a plurality of imaging apparatuses. However, there has been a problem that color matching cannot be correctly performed because of the difficulty in extracting an object suitable for performing color matching from images captured in various environments.